More of Our Halloween Traditions.

18. Bonfire 1 ( Our first bonfire is a new tradition that we are starting next year it's a bonfire to open up the season. It's a toast to the end of summer and beginning of our Halloween season. Giving credit for this idea to Anthony Rapino, owner and creator of Candy Corn Apocalypse. You do this on August 31st. )

19. Thriller Thursday (This is a tradition we do yearly. Alice 107.7 does this thing where they tell horror stories every Thursday morning in October. It's so scary and so much fun to listen too.)

20. Bonfire for 1st Day of Fall (This is another new tradition we are starting this year thanks to Anthony Rapino again. We will celebrate the first day of Fall with a bonfire.)

21. Arkansas Paranormal Expo (every year we attend The Arkansas Paranormal Expo. It's such a fun and interesting event. They have some really awesome speakers come out. It's something we are really passionate about.)

22. Outdoor Scenic Walk (We enjoy taking a walk during this time of year to see all the fallen leaves and see all of God's beauty. It's really nice and fun to take a family walk and enjoy the cool breeze.)

23. Bake Pumpkin Seeds (Baking Pumpkin seeds is a must and as of this year we plan on doing this tradition every year from here on out.)

24. Give your candy to "The Great Pumpkin" (This is another brand new tradition for us that we are starting this year. It's such a cute and fun thing to do for kids. Our son is going to love this. What you do is you decide how many pieces of candy you want to leave out on your porch for the The Great Pumpkin and he will take the candy and leave some little Halloween toys in their place. For example if you leave 3 pieces of candy out he will take them and replace it with 3 toys. Such a cute idea and we are definitely starting this fun tradition this year.)

25. Horror Box Unboxing ( This is another new tradition we are starting this year. We have recently subscribed to the amazing Box of Dread and also Horror Block. We are going to make it a tradition of opening these boxes up together when we receive them during the season. They are full of Horror movie goodies and we can't wait to get our hands on these and see whats all inside.)

26. Create and listen to a Halloween Music Playlist ( This is something we have been doing every year. We actually keep our playlist all year long and just add some new music to it each year to enjoy. We love listening to some of our favorite Halloween Tunes and sounds. 

Here were just a few more of our Halloween traditions that we enjoy each year and I have also added some brand new traditions we are starting this year. It's so exciting to be adding so much more fun to our yearly traditions. I hope everyone is enjoying the season so far and have a fabulous rest of it! Have a Bootiful day everyone! :) 

Getting Closer.......

It's getting closer... That wonderful, amazing, beautiful time of year is almost here. We've been waiting for it to come back around again. The only hold back to my rush is that my son starts Kindergarten this year. :( My baby is growing up and its hard for me to let him go to K all day everyday. I'm proud he is a smart boy and that he is getting so big, but I still want him to stay my little baby too. Well..ok.. "sniff sniff" onward to why I'm writing. Just wanted to share the fact that it's getting closer and come September 1st our decorating will kick in full force! Once that date hits then it's onward to all things fall and Halloween. This year we are hoping to be in our new place. The painting took a little longer than expected, but we still plan to be in by the end of this month. That's just in time to start decorating. I have so many ideas and a lot of new cool stuff I can't wait to share with everyone. I've been having lots of new things made. :) You are going to love it! So keep an eye out for that. Well, I guess thats it for right now just wanted to spread some fallish/Halloweeny joy! :) Have a Boo-tiful day! 

Our Future Haunted House

I wanted to take a minute to talk about something really important for us thats coming in the near future.... Guess what??!!.... Ok, I'll tell you now. We have been discussing it for a few years now. We are finally about to move into our new place with lots more room and land to do fun things with. We have decided to start a Haunted House!! I'm so excited! I mean over the moon excited about this! I have always wanted to do one. I have always wanted to do that a Pumpkin Patch, but we don't have the land for that, but a friend of mine has decided she was going to have a pumpkin patch, They have plenty of space and land for it so thats wonderful! Any hoo, back to the haunted house. We plan to start it in October 2017. We plan on making it an annual thing. We are still working out all the details of it and how we are gonna make it run. We got lots of new and fun ideas ahead once we get into the new place we can make it all happen. We hope to bring some Halloween joy to everyone and also plenty of scares!!! :) Can't wait to get this going and have everyone come out and enjoy. Like I said we are still working out details and deciding how much to charge and all that stuff. I'll keep updating on the process as we go. Happy early Halloween !

Our Halloween Traditions

I've really been having Halloween fever here lately. I just can't wait for it to come back around again. So since we have a little while till fall rolls back around again I wanted to share some of our Halloween traditions. Our son is 5 years old and we have started these traditions since he was a baby. He is obsessed with all things fall and Halloween just like his mommy. :) Here are some of our traditions we share as a family each year.

1. Pumpkin Patch (A pumpkin patch is a must for us each year and sometimes we go to more than one. We couldn't imagine not going to the Pumpkin Patch. Going to pick that special pumpkin and going through the neat corn maze is a must!)

2. Jack-o-lantern carving (Every year we carve a few pumpkins and make some really neat Jack-o-Lanterns. We really enjoy carving them and even pulling out the seeds. This is definitely a favorite.) 

3. My Son's Annual Halloween Party ( We actually started this particular tradition when my son turned 3 years old. We usually have the party at Cane Creek State Park. Its a beautiful place and they are really into Halloween and decorating for the season. We have snacks and we play games. We also have our annual Hayride. You have got to have a hayride during the Halloween season.)

4. Hayride ( We do a hayride at our son's annual Halloween Party that I just wrote about in #3)

5. Trick or Treating (Of course we go trick or treating! In our town at our State Park they do an annual Ghost Roast where you come and trick or treat and play games and go through a haunted house. It's really fun and very popular in our area. People come from a few towns over just to attend this event each year. Then of course we go trick or treating on Halloween night in our neighborhood.)

6. Decorate (This is one of our favorite things to do during this time of year. We actually start decorating in September! And even then it's not long enough! We decorate inside and outside each year.) 

7. Scary Baking ( We always make scary snacks and foods each year. We sit down and decorate scary cookies, cupcakes and make scary hot dogs and other fun things. 

8. Pick out our Costumes (The picking of the costume is a very special thing. We always go check out all the different stores and go on line and search for just the right one.) 

9. Scary Movie Night ( We actually do this one almost everynight, but we dedicate one night as a family and watch some of our favorite scary movies. Some of our favorites include... Halloween (original), Hocus Pocus, Night of The Demons(Original), Nightmare Before Christmas,It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, Jack-O, Sleepy Hollow High, Ghost Busters, Sleepy Hollow, The Fear:Halloween Night that is just a few of the so many different ones we love dearly and watch each year. I could keep naming a million more)

10. Haunted House

11. Halloween shopping ( Each year we hit up all the stores looking for all the different Halloween finds we can come across. We buy cereals, candies, decorations, etc. We go find random things for the season. We even find Pizza and cakes for the season. It's like a fun game and we love it! It's so neat to find all the cool things that come out for the season.)

12. Scary Stories (We always cuddle up by a fire or just in bed with a flash light and tell spooky stories and we also listen to some stories from my Elementary school days, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. My son just loves "The Big Toe")

13.Halloween Story time ( Each night we have a halloween story time where we pick one of our Halloween books and read it. My son really loves this and so do I! We make so many good memories reading his books)

14. Halloween Lights and Decor Ride (Each year we like to ride around and see all the different homes and places that decorate for Halloween. This is one of our favorite things to do during this time.)

15. O.T.I.S. ( We are a huge fan of J.W. Ocker and his blog www.oddthingsiveseen.com We love keeping up with his annual Halloween blog. His Halloween blog is amazing and so much fun to read and follow. He visits all these neat places and it's one of our family traditions to follow his blog and enjoy all his halloween finds. We even take off and see some of these cool places he writes about when we can.)

16. Halloween crafts (We love  making Halloween crafts together.)

17. Halloween Board Games ( This is actually a new tradition we plan to add this year to our list of fun traditions. We recently got our son a few new board games that are Halloween themed. We plan to pick a family Halloween Game Night and play these. We got "Boooo-opoly" and "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown Board Game" We can't wait to try these out and add them to our traditions.

As you can see Halloween is a very special time for us. It's one of our favorite holidays. We love Fall and everything that comes along with it. I think everyone should start their own traditions with their family. It makes great memories and your children will remember these memories forever and hopefully keep the traditions up in their families as well. But here are some of our special traditions we hold strong to each year and plan to keep doing forever. :) Happy Early Halloween to everyone! Have a Boo-tiful day! :)